I apologize for the lack of posts, it’s been a bit busy lately as my life has, yet again, changed (for the better). I thank my readers again for their patience and support and I hope that you will continue reading!

In any case, I was wandering Twitter today for pictures of World Pride 2014 (I took my own pictures but I wanted to see if I missed anything) and while I was wandering Twitter, I found a video of Yuzuru Hanyu’s new short program.

EDIT: Old video got taken down. New video found. The program is relatively clean. I hate the meandering emptiness when he sets up the quad though.

Yuzuru is skating to one of my favourite piano pieces, Chopin’s Ballade no. 1. (Mao did a wonderful exhibition to it years ago as well.) From a little googling and lurking on figure skating forums, it seems that the choreographer is Jeffrey Buttle. I really love watching Jeff’s choreography. It’s such a breath of fresh air. However, this time around, this program gave me a bout of nostalgia. It has a very 90s 6.0 feel with touches of Ilia Kulik here and there. Overall, Yuzuru seems to have made an interesting decision in that he’s trying to show versatility and maturity coming off his Olympic season. The program looks shaky overall right now but I sincerely hope that Yuzuru can pull it off. I have a feeling that this program can be something magical when it’s skated to perfection.

Anyways, it’s late and I really shouldn’t be awake at this time so I’ll post the link to GP assignments tomorrow. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, let me know what you think of Yuzuru’s new SP in the comments!

Youtube suggested this video to me and it seems to be a recent performance by Gracie Gold to the super viral song, “Let It Go” from Frozen.

Overall, the program is pretty empty as are many exhibition programs and I’m wondering where Gracie’s huge jumps are (all of her jumps look a little shaky in this performance) but one thing strikes me very hard. Gracie is using the right tools to set herself up as America’s darling ice princess. (And we all know that America only love their skating queens if they style themselves up as ice princesses.) And what better way to do it than with the viral Disney song about an ice princess? Some parts of that routine were reminiscent of Michelle Kwan, especially the spirals placed in the crescendos of the music and that little whorl afterwards done by putting one’s hand on the ice.

Watch out for this girl, she has the perfect last name, political backing and the right packaging to take ladies figure skating by storm in the next cycle… if she can hold her technique together.

On another note, I love the costume.

What do you think of this program and Gracie’s progress? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!

This video emerged showing the new partnership of Victoria Sinitsina & Nikita Katsalapov skating together. I believe Marina Zueva choreographed this routine (correct me if I’m wrong) and she seems to have styled them more elegantly with vestiges of Tessa & Scott showing in some (or actually, a lot of) moments in that routine.

However, they don’t quite have that unison and that connection that makes them look at if they breathe at the same time and Nikita looks dead and tired throughout this program. That may change but this is a pretty interesting first look at this pair. They certainly need polish but they’re not terrible as a whole. There was that dicey moment in that curve lift that scared me a little bit but overall they seem to work well with each other. I’d have to see more technical skating before I pass any more sort of judgments on their career success.